


Years and Years

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-21 02:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni
Summary: Or, five times Ben Solo wanted to ask Rey out and one time he did.





	Years and Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aionimica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aionimica/gifts).



> I'm sorry this isn't very good (especially the ending alfhdslfghsdlfs it could be so much better) but I've been writer's blocked for a couple of months, and I was writer's blocked as I was writing this! I hope you like it anyway! :)

**5 th grade**

When Ben Solo first walked into Jedi Elementary School, he was being dragged by a teacher’s hand, and he was looking down at his feet in order to avoid anyone looking him in the eye.

_I’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t introduce me, I’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t introduce me, I’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t introduce me…_

“Please welcome our new student, Ben Solo, to the Kanata Krew!”

_Ugh._

“Ben, won’t you like to introduce yourself?”

Ben took a deep breath and kept his eyes focused on his feet.

“Ben?”

“Hi,mynameisBenSoloandI’mnewhereandIliketoplayvideogamesandwritestoriesit’slovelytomeetyouall.”

When he looked up, the class was looking at him with confusion.

“Huh?” one boy asked. “What’d he say, Mrs. K?”

“Speak more slowly, please,” Mrs. Kanata said, and the kindness in her eyes made Ben want to crawl into a hole and die.

“Wait, that’s my cousin!” a voice called from the back.

Ben looked over to see Finn Skywalker jumping from his seat excitedly.

“Finn, please raise your hand before you speak. But it’s so lovely to have family in the same class.”

Finn sat back down and raised his hand.

“Yes, Finn?”

“Hi, Ben! How are you?”

Ben waved shyly and took another deep breath.

“Hi, my name is Ben Solo. I’m new here. I like to play video games and write stories. It’s lovely to meet you all.”

The class clapped unenthusiastically.

“Ben, why don’t you sit at a table with your cousin? He’s sitting with Jess and Rey, and there just so happens to be an empty seat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ben mumbled, shuffling over to the back of the room. His cousin was sitting with a short girl with long black hair in pigtails whose desk said “Jess” on it.

“Rey’s in the bathroom,” Finn explained. “She’ll be back any minute.”

Ben busied himself with unpacking his backpack and pulling out all the folders and notebooks that the supply list said he would need. They all had his name and the respective subject written on them in his mother’s careful handwriting.

“So, how’re Aunt Leia and Uncle Han doing?” Finn asked, and Ben was in the middle of a generic “okay” before the door opened and Rey Kenobi walked in.

Her hair was done in three careful buns, and Jess was leaning over and whispering that she was the one who had invented that hairstyle, but Ben wasn’t listening because he was more focused on her. She had a soft face full of freckles and a wide smile across it, and as she handed the bathroom pass back to Mrs. K and walked back to their table, Ben decided that he was in love for the first and last time in his life.

“This is Ben,” Jess explained to her. “He’s the new kid. And also Finn’s cousin.”

“Oh, cool!” Rey said brightly. “I’m Rey.”

Ben was too helpless to do anything but nod. All the way through reading and math class, until the bell finally rang for lunch, he was focused on watching her.

Rey, Finn, and Jess were the first three out of the door. But Ben stayed, staring at the paper in front of him, wondering what he should write. It took him until everyone had already left to decide, remembering something his dad had told him a long time ago. Then, lunchbox already in hand, he slipped it into Rey’s cubby and left the room after the rest of the class.

“What took you so long?” Finn asked. But Ben shook his head and refused to say.

 

At the end of the school day, Rey walked up to Ben and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” he asked, body already burning up with anticipation.

“Were you the one who left this note in my cubby?”

She held it up, frowning. Ben didn’t need to read it to know what it said: “Get out of my school” in all-capital letters.

“Yeah,” Ben confessed.

“Why would you say something so mean?”

“It’s, uh, a joke. Between me and my friends at my old school. We sometimes left notes like this in each other’s cubbies. Sorry. I should have known you wouldn’t be in on it.”

Rey raised an eyebrow and looked at him for a couple seconds before bursting out into giggles.

“That’s pretty great, actually,” she said brightly. “I like it.”

She pulled out her own piece of paper and wrote “Get out of my school” on it with alternating purple and pink colors.

“Are you allowed to put your name on it?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Ben watched her write her name in big, swoopy handwriting with a blue colored pencil. Then, she slipped it into his cubby and looked over at him with a wide smile.

“Good job,” Ben said, and Rey giggled.

“You know,” she said, “I like you already.”

**Summer between 7 th and 8th grade**

“Hey, Ben.”

Ben looked up from the book he was reading and at Armitage Hux, or, as he called him, Armi. Armi was already in his swim trunks, towel wrapped around one shoulder.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Rey’s fighting someone on the beach. It’s getting pretty intense. Wanna go watch?”

“Rey Kenobi?” Ben asked, slipping his book under his towel.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Oh man, I was friends with her in fifth grade. We kinda drifted away in middle school, though. Who’s she fighting?”

“Some kid named Alex. I just came, so I don’t know how it started. Wanna go watch?”

“Sure.”

Ben followed Armi over to the other side of the beach and saw Rey already, hair out of its signature three buns, having pinned a blond boy down to the ground, throwing punches at his face and chest while he tried helplessly to fend them off.

“That’s less of a fight and more of a beatdown,” Ben pointed out.

“Oh, it was a fight when I was here. She pinned him down fairly quickly, I guess.”

Ben walked up to her, careful not to make a sound. The boy – Alex – looked up at him with pleading eyes, but Ben ignored him.

“And that’s the _last_ time you _ever_ grope my friend, understand?”

Alex nodded. Rey punched him in the ear again.

“I need to hear it from you. _Do. You. Understand?”_

“Yes.”

“Louder.”

_“YES!”_

At this point Alex was sobbing, but there was no sign of softness in Rey’s face.

“Promise.”

“I promise that I… that I’ll never… grope your friend again.”

“Grope _anyone_ again.”

“I promise that I’ll never grope anyone again.”

“Very good. Dirtbag.”

Rey stood up. Sweat was dripping from her forehead, slicking her shoulder-length brown hair back. She was clearly exhausted, but her mouth was pressed firmly tight.

“Hey,” Ben said, stretching out a hand.

Rey looked over but said nothing.

“That was pretty cool. What you did for your friend.”

Rey nodded and kept walking. Ben, without thinking, followed her, stopping with her when she flopped down on her pool chair.

“I would have done it for anyone,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Ben nodded. “That’s good. You’re a good person, Rey.”

“Thanks. So are you.”

“Thanks.”

With that, Ben began to walk away, thinking about how there was more that he could have said, much more, but that he was too terrible with words to even begin to say it.

**Freshman year**

“Yeah,” Armi said, picking at the cardboard cafeteria pizza on his tray. “Gwen’s cousins with Amanda, who does karate with Leah, who’s friends with Jess, who’s friends with Rey. I’ve got you, dude.”

Ben smiled at his PB&J sandwich from home. “Do you think she’ll say yes?”

Armi thought about it for a second. “I’d say there’s about an eighty percent chance. On a good day.”

“That’s pretty good,” Ben forced out. There was worry in his eyes, he knew – Armi was an A student, and for him an 80 was equivalent to leaving his house and living in the woods naked – but Armi was already pulling out his phone and texting.

If it were any occasion but this, Ben would just drop the subject and talk to Armi about something else while they waited. But his throat was too closed with worry to even open his mouth to eat.

Finally, at the end of the lunch period, Armi’s phone buzzed with a reply.

“Gwen says Amanda has karate after school today,” he said. “So that’s when you’ll get your answer, I guess.”

Ben smiled as he picked up his backpack and moved to leave. “Thanks.”

“Any time.”

 

Ben was doing his biology homework when he got a reply. Ignoring his mom’s rule of no phones during homework, he pushed aside his textbook and jumped to unlock it, heart racing frantically.

“Oh God, I don’t even want to look,” he whispered to himself.

It took about five minutes for him to steady his breath enough to look down at the screen.

_Armi: Gwen said that Leah and Jess had a falling out. Something about Leah sabotaging Jess’s application for a summer camp or something._

_Armi: Dunno any other network to Rey. Sorry, man._

_Armi: Wait, isn’t her best friend your cousin? Why don’t you ask him?_

_Ben: Meh, it’d be awkward. We’re not that close._

_Ben: Whatever. I didn’t even like her that much anyway._

Armi knew that that was wrong, but he said nothing, instead sending a screenshot of a Tide pod meme from Instagram. Ben texted back a series of laughing emojis and threw his phone back on his bed with a deep sigh. When he went back to bio, it took him ten minutes of studying before he realized that he was on the wrong chapter entirely.

**Sophomore year**

_Dear Rey,_

_You are the light of my life. I can’t stop thinking about your perfect body-_

“No,” Gwen cut in. “That’s creepy.”

“What do I say, then?” Ben asked.

“Eyes. Focus on one part of the body. Not a sexy one, though.”

“Okay. I guess that makes sense.”

_I can’t stop thinking about your perfect eyes. I’ve liked you since elementary school. Will you go on a date with me?_

_Ben Solo_

“Perfect,” Gwen said after scanning over it. “You can slip it into her locker tomorrow. You remember the number?”

“Yeah. 2187.”

“Good job.”

Phasma looked down at her phone. “Ugh, I have to go now. Or my parents will kill me. Good luck, dude.”

And with a hug, she was gone.

 

The next morning, palms sweating so much the paper was probably soaked through completely, Ben slipped the note into Rey’s locker just before first period. Before she could approach her locker and see it, he broke into a run to French, slamming down into the table where he sat with Armi, Gwen, and a football player whose nickname was “Nines.”

 _I did it,_ he mouthed breathlessly, accepting the quiet high-fives under the table. He was so nervous during the class that he could barely move his pencil to take notes.

In second period – history – Finn approached him.

“Hey, Ben,” he said, awkwardness wrapping around the duo and choking them.

“Hi. What’s up?”

“Um, why did you slip a love note addressed to Rey into my locker?”

Ben screamed through gritted teeth.

“Do you like her or something?” Finn asked. “’Cause if so, I can totally try and see if she feels the same. I can help you out.”

“Oh, uh, no,” Ben said quickly. “I meant it for someone else.”

Finn’s face was blank. “…it said ‘Dear Rey’ at the top.”

“Oh, uh, I just remembered that I’m really sick. I have to go to the nurse’s.”

“Huh?”

Ben gave a couple of fake coughs, ran out the door, and slipped into a storage closet. There, he pressed his head against a wall, ignoring the brooms falling over and slapping him on the back.

**Junior year**

“I’m not gonna ask her out again.”

Ben, Armi, and Gwen were sitting on the roof of the school eating McDonald’s takeout. Well, Armi and Gwen were sitting – Ben was flopped down in frustration, chocolate ice cream all over his face.

“I’ve tried twice already. _Twice._ I’m pretty sure that’s a sign or something.”

“She never said no,” Armi pointed out. “And I don’t mean that in a creepy way. I mean that in a ‘the message was never delivered’ way. C’mon, dude. Give it another shot.”

“Ask her out in person!” Gwen burst out.

“Ex- _cuse_ me?”

“I said what I said. Hey, isn’t that her down there? Let’s do it.”

Gwen dug around in Ben’s backpack and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper. Using the floor as a flat surface, she pulled out a red marker and wrote ‘HO-CO?’ in bubble letters. After a moment’s consideration, she tacked on some hearts for good measure before folding it into a paper airplane.

“Here you go, Benjamin. Throw it at the girl of your dreams.”

“My name isn’t short for Benjamin,” Ben couldn’t help but point out.

“Okay.”

“It’s not short for anything. It’s just Ben.”

“Okay, that’s cool. Now throw the goddamn paper airplane.”

Ben picked it up from Gwen’s hand, aimed carefully, and threw, hitting the brown-haired head squarely in the back. She turned around and bent down to pick it up, and in that moment, Ben heard a frantic motion beside him.

“Shit, shit, _shit,”_ Gwen whispered. “We’ve got to go.”

“That’s not Rey,” Armi pointed out helpfully.

“Yeah, I could tell without your input,” Gwen hissed. “C’mon, guys. Hurry before she thinks to look up.”

Ben picked up Armi and Gwen’s McDonald’s bags and shoved them inside his own. “Why the rush, though? It might just be some random freshman who doesn’t even know us. None of our names were on it.”

”No, Ben. That’s not a random freshman. That’s my ex, Jessica. It ended pretty badly between us. Now hurry _up!_ Armi, stop staring at your phone!”

Frantically, she dragged her friends by the arms toward the exit, not letting go until they were already down the staircase and back in the school. Then, she ran, forcing Ben and Armi to strain to keep up.

Gwen didn’t stop until they were in front of the French classroom, red-faced and sweaty-headed.

“You’re on the track team,” Armi whined. “How the hell did you expect us to keep up with you properly?”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “Step your game up. We don’t have all day.”

Ben laughed through his tears, taking a couple seconds to breathe before saying, “See, I don’t need a girlfriend. I have great times with you guys.”

And it was true, he realized, at least on the surface. But that didn’t change how much he wanted Rey to date him.

 

**Senior year**

_Armi: Last homecoming of our high school, huh?_

_Ben: Yeah._

_Ben: And you and Gwen are staying home._

_Armi: Yeah lol we’re losers_

_Armi: Now go out there and enjoy yourself ;)_

Ben put his phone in his back pocket and leaned against the wall with a mini sandwich. By “enjoy yourself,” of course, Armi meant “go to homecoming to pretend you’re living the high school experience but then just hide in the bathroom and don’t talk to anyone.” That was how it always was. That was how it always would be.

Rey was dancing in the middle of the room with her posse. Ben wasn’t going to prom (he, Armi, and Gwen were going on a cross-country road trip) so he wouldn’t see her again. Not like this, anyway, in a short blue dress and hair down. Not like this.

He was done hiding behind notes and friends and words left unsaid. He bit his lip so hard that it nearly bled, took his hands out of his pockets, and walked through the crowd to her.

“Hi, Rey,” he said, making sure to speak loudly to be heard over the music.

“Oh, hey, Ben!” she said brightly. “How are you?”

“My friends aren’t going to homecoming, so I’m kind of alone.”

“Aw, that sucks. Want to dance with us?”

“Sure!”

Rey gestured vaguely around the group. “You know Finn, Poe, and Jess. That’s Jess’s girlfriend, Karé. She goes to a different school.”

Ben waved, and Karé waved back.

“Anyway, come join the Bad Dancer Club.”

Ben smiled. The song switched to another poppy one, and Rey grabbed his right hand while Finn grabbed his left.

 _It’s this easy,_ he thought, over and over again. _It’s really this easy._

Ben stepped on Finn’s toe, and he giggled. “Two left feet, huh?”

“Yeah.”

_Why the hell didn’t I go for this sooner?_

A couple of fast songs later, there was a slow song. Finn and Poe broke off from the group, and so did Jess and Karé, leaving Rey and Ben looking at each other.

This was it. This was what Ben’s life had been building up to ever since fifth grade and that note slipped into her cubby. There was no dancing around it.

“Shall we?” he asked, extending a slender hand.

Rey took it. “We shall.”

She placed her other hand on his waist and looked up at him shyly.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” she whispered.

“I know,” he whispered back. “Me too.”

They kept swaying to the music, and Ben felt as if he were filled with starlight.


End file.
